David Ward - Landscape Photography - Into The Light

I've recently finished Alain de Botton's interesting book The Consolations of Philosophy and it got me thinking about what the consolations of photography might be. You may be wondering why would I wonder at all about the consolations of photography? Surely photography doesn't produce or require consolations, surely it's just a simple pleasure (a past-time akin to gardening) or, at most, a simple desire to create. But for us to go to the trouble and expense of travelling across the globe and getting up at a seriously unsociable hour to make an image, surely there must be more to it than that. Conversely, for a viewer to be attracted to a photograph there must be something in it that rewards them – either emotionally, or intellectually, or aesthetically, or all three. Might an image do more than this, might photography alleviate the pains of a viewer or the woes of a photographer?

As a photographer, it has seemed to me for some time that my relationship with photography exhibits many of the same traits as an addiction: I need regular 'hits'; as time goes on I become inured to my level of 'exposures' and 'need' bigger hits; I experience extreme lows between receiving my doses of photography; I spend a disproportionate amount of my life thinking about making photos; I don't think about the costs (social or fiscal) when I'm getting a hit. All sure signs of an emotional addiction though, thankfully, not a physical dependency – I say thankfully because if it were a physical dependency I am surely doomed. I fear that my body will soon rebel against the 3:00am starts and the effort of dragging 20kg up a hill as I approach my sixth decade. Perhaps this is why playing with a digital compact is beginning to seem so appealing!

As well as highs, any addiction always has downsides. For me these include a large amount of time spent away from home and my relative poverty (compared to those sensible people I was at school with who now have proper, grown up jobs and five bedroom houses in Buckinghamshire). But the highs do console, easily compensating me for the lows. I wouldn't swap my life for another. It is very hard to surpass the moment when you place a 5x4 transparency on the lightbox for the first time and, miracle of miracles, find that you have largely fulfilled your vision. Perhaps it doesn't quite achieve the ecstatic feeling that accompanies a religious revelation, doesn't quite compare with the physical intensity of a sexual climax. But the intense feeling of euphoria that I experience when it all goes "right" has kept me coming back for more for 25 years.

Picking apart the causes for my addiction is bound to be only partially successful but I think that I have determined six motivations. I want to:

Record the beauty I find...

I have written at length about beauty elsewhere so I only want to reiterate here that a desire to capture the beauty we see around us is very often the foundation of any journey into art and it was certainly my starting point. I also believe that as we grow as artists so our sensibilities become more honed and so new beauties are revealed to us. This progressive revelation, this expectation of there always being more to find, is also key to my continuing fascination with photography.

Explore the visual realm – not to "express" myself!

I used to think (and say, if asked) that I was expressing myself through my photography, but I'm no longer comfortable with the notion of self-expression through the medium of a single image. My dictionary defines self-expression thus:

noun

the expression of one's feelings, thoughts, or ideas, esp. in writing, art, music, or dance.

The problem I have is with the word 'expression'; it implies a transmission of accessible data, the transmission of a "message". But images, dance or music don't have an agreed set of definitions. They aren't the same as words or even facial expressions; there's no possibility of truly knowing what has been 'said'. There's no direct translation of these art forms into words or emotions, often there's no possibility for even a partial translation. Single images are my métier but I strongly believe that there cannot be a clear transmission of meaning or emotion through a single image. Any image is both a window on the world and a semi-silvered mirror of the photographer. At its best it can reveal something about both, at worst it only tells you what you already knew or weren't interested in finding out. No matter how sharply focused, a photograph is a distorted and indistinct representation of the many signifiers it carries. If one really seeks self-expression then words are the best means.

I do still make images because I am moved or intrigued by the subject, but I don't have an expectation that an audience will have more than a vague notion of these motivations. So, rather than seeking to "express" myself I now think of what I do as an exploration. All I can do is hope that the resulting images might sometimes be a revelation to an audience, or at least resonate with them.

Find the boundary between description and evocation...

This is really another part of my journey of exploration. I want to find the boundary because for me this is the most exciting and elusive part of photography. The idea that one might make an image that is a perfect description of some thing but which evokes something greater, or something else entirely, is intoxicating.

The imperfect nature of message transmission via a photograph means that this process is bound to be a bit hit and miss – but it's fun to experiment. Given that photography is such a poor transmitter, how can we know where the boundary lies? I think only by observing where it lies for us individually and with our own images. Perhaps one of the greatest conundrums is how we might make an image yet find that the result surprises us, that it tells us something unexpected. How can it when we were there from beginning to end? That's such an exciting question for me. I don't think that we can find the boundary with a systematic search. I think that only by innocently playing with photography might we find some answers.

I found my friend Giles Stokoe's recent talk*, "Why we make images", both relevant and very interesting. I was particularly taken by his comments on play and photography as it struck a chord with my own views. I've thought for some time that we take our photography far too seriously (hark at him, I hear you cry!) when we should be playing with it. There is a temptation to stop messing about once we have reached a certain level of technical and compositional competence; to stick with what we know, to "play" it safe. This way we know that we will produce reasonable images. But this way lies stagnation. If we want to grow as photographers, we need to take what we've learnt and play with it with childish abandon. We should strive to see with the innocence of a child, work with a child's disregard for rules and their fearlessness about getting things "wrong".

Console myself with a glimpse of the possibility of perfection in an otherwise imperfect world...

Salvador Dali reputedly said "Don't worry about perfection... You'll never reach it" but for me a 5X4 image that I make that both excites me visually and is technically good is as close to perfection as anything that I will ever encounter in my life. It is also the most direct translation of my imagination. That is why I feel that the tranny is the embodiment of my vision; it is both a near-perfect object in its own right and the closest I will ever get to a perfect realisation of my vision. Not perfection but damn close.

I'm obsessed with form as is photographer Robert Adams. He asked the question, "Why is Form beautiful?" and answered, "Because, I think, it helps us meet our worst fear, the suspicion that life may be chaos and that therefore our suffering is without meaning." This might seem a little melodramatic, perhaps even quasi-religious. Adams isn't suggesting that Form is the meaning of life but just that it suggests that there might be some meaning. Part of my motivation for photography is the desire to reach an imperfect understanding of the world, to glimpse order within the chaos that surrounds me. Without photography there are so many things in life that I would never have truly seen, perhaps never have even noticed. Photography provides for me a way to dissect the world, to distill a visual essence, and in the process to begin to understand.

Create...

Cecile B. DeMille said "Creativity is a drug I cannot live without." What can possibly be more satisfying than making something? Enough said.

Please myself...

All of the above combine to make photography a pleasurable experience for me. But more importantly photography is an area of my life where I am in control(?), where I can do as I please without having to worry (at least at the moment when I release the shutter) what others think!

* At the Light & Land Discovery Day

I spotted this dinky little digital compact in a local Tescos. Apparently Linhof's foray into this fiercely competitive market sector failed almost as soon as it began as the camera has been discontinued... Can we expect a similar offering from Ebony to appear in the timber section at B&Q?

A casual critical comment made by someone I've never met has had a quite profound effect on me. Given my defence of my right to critique the work of others, those of you who took an opposing stance could be forgiven for a feeling of schadenfreude. I should point out, though, that I defend this anonymous critics right to criticize. What they said didn't wound me, I'm not feeling persecuted, I just don't agree with what he/she said. Perhaps I should start at the beginning...

A participant on one of my recent workshops said that an acquaintance of hers had dismissively remarked that, "David Ward, oh, he only does one thing..."

First of all I'd like to point out that it's simply not true that I only do one thing. A line from The Blues Brothers seems apposite, "Oh, we have both kinds of music here – Country and Western!" I do both kinds of detail shots – doors and windows! To be a little more serious, I want to ask a couple of questions; what exactly is the one thing that the critic thinks that I do, what's wrong with doing only one thing and why has this comment annoyed me so much?

Well, I can't for the life of me think what the one thing is – unless it's what one might loosely term landscape photography? As well as the aforementioned doors and windows I also "do" ferns, rocks with lichen, fences, snow, trees, ice, running water, leaves, reflections, cloudscapes, seascapes, boats, sand dunes... oh, yes, and grand vistas and any other subject that appeals to me at a particular moment. These all fit within a loose genre but are nowhere near as narrow a field as the "one thing" remark would suggest. Unfortunately the critic didn't elaborate so I don't know what she/he was thinking of and can only conjecture what the reasoning behind the remark might have been. Perhaps the critic was lazily expressing the thought that I shot in a particular style, that I had an easily recognised approach to my subjects. Surely that's a possible mark of someone who has found their artistic "voice", something most artists would aspire to. After all we don't wish to be seen merely as plagiarists. Granted, a consistent approach might also be the mark of someone who is making images by rote, by the rigorous application of a formula. Of course I'm bound to say that I don't make images to any predetermined formula but one could argue that any artist who has found their "voice" is working within a set of self-imposed parameters, whether these be conscious or unconscious. Would my critic also have a poke at Rembrandt for only painting moody portraits or JMW Turner for painting sunsets or Pablo Picasso for painting funny faces? It's evident that the original remark is based upon a degree of typecasting. All these artists actually produced other kinds of images yet we know them for a particular type of output. We must remember that an individual piece of an artist's work sits within the wider context of the entire history of their work. Turner didn't always paint impressionistic work, that work appeared as a result of many years of artistic exploration. It's a common human weakness to want to pigeonhole people and their work but this reductive approach doesn't help us to a rounded understanding of an artist and their body of work. Artists are understandably known for their great works but these didn't miraculously spring to life fully formed. These artists worked hard, often for decades, before these masterpieces "appeared". And they often went on to produce different, less well know work after their famous pieces.

The idea of an artist's voice raises an ancillary question; what's wrong with an artist concentrating on a particular field of the visual realm, what's wrong with an artist being a portraitist or working exclusively on landscape? Or, what's wrong with being a specialist and what's great about being a generalist? Apart from in the hands of a few noted geniuses, true Renaissance men such as Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo Buonorotti, the non-specialist approach has tended to the production of work characterised by its mediocrity. True polymaths are very rare individuals and it seems self evident to me that to excel at anything one needs to fully apply oneself to that particular thing. A parallel with Olympic sport springs to mind. Participants in the Decathlon compete in the same prescribed ten events – 100-metre dash, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400-metre dash, 110-metre hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, and 1,500-metre run. These incredibly talented athletes are rarely if ever world record holders in any of these individual events. If they were good enough to be the world record holder in any one of them their time would more fruitfully be spent concentrating on that individual sport. But their specialism is the decathlon not the individual sports, the context of their efforts is the performance of other decathletes not that of specialists. A similar choice might be made by an artist; the choice to explore many different artistic fields with the concomitant risk that one might never achieve the highest level of achievement. There's nothing wrong with this per se but a decision to diversify cannot possibly be a justification to criticise someone who chooses to specialise. Of course the rarified heights of ultimate acheivement are only ever reached by a few talented and committed practitioners so one could argue that it's not worth the effort, why waste years trying to be the best when the chance of getting there is so slim? Well, personally I can't see the point in pursuing an artistic endeavour if one doesn't want to make the effort to do it really well. I might not reach the highest heights but it will be an interesting and eventful journey.

Time is limited so an artist needs to use it wisely and effectively. In any artistic endeavour a fairly large percentage of the time available first needs to be assigned to understanding the technicalities, mastering one's craft, and only then can one concentrate on any artistic exploration. One could argue that once one has mastered the technicalities of photography the same techniques could be applied to any kind of picture making. This is far too simplistic a view. Photography perhaps has more specialisations than any other art form. These specialisms haven't arisen by chance. Economics obviously plays some part in the diversification but the depth of technical knowledge needed for each specialized field is of greater importance. Apart from a few shared fundamental principals – the aperture / shutter speed relationship being the most obvious – there is very little in common between say a landscape photographer and a sports photographer or a wedding photographer and still life photographer. Each area of specialization has its own canon of arcane knowledge, the little wrinkles in the field of photographic knowledge that need to be fully mapped and understood in order for one to excel in that arena and not trip and fall flat on one's face.

So why has the anonymous critic's comment annoyed me so much? Because it was a lazy comment with no substantiating argument. If one wants to be globally critical of another's work then one must make the effort to learn about what they do in a rounded way, not simply to caricature their work. The point of criticism is not merely to traduce another's work, criticism isn't just a chance to "have a go", not merely an outlet for spite. Properly used it is a way to apply critical thought to the work of others and to learn lessons that one can apply to one's own approach in the process. A global dismissal of a photographer's work is not criticism it's completely pointless. I have been critical of some of the work of a certain Harry Cory Wright but I think that some his seascapes are absolutely incredible. I would never assume that a photographer could only do one thing nor dismiss all their work with such a thoughtless comment. It is incumbent upon any critic to consider what they are saying not merely to say the first thing that comes into their head.

Anyway, time to get back to my one thing...

As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I've just returned from a trip to Iceland. I sent off my transparencies for development on Wednesday and Keith the Postie duly brought me back my latest images on Friday. A number of things occurred to me whilst looking at my new images, chief amongst them the question, how can a photograph that I have taken transport me to somewhere that is somehow more than the place that I photographed? But first a digression...

Whilst I've been enjoying experimenting with that new-fangled digibal (sic) phonography I must admit that one aspect of it leaves me feeling (perversely?) dissatisfied; namely, its immediacy. I know, I know; the instant feedback is one of the great things about digital! It speeds up the learning process and helps people to correct mistakes there and then that might otherwise have resulted in a fruitless expedition. But, but!... I like the butterflies in the pit of my stomach feeling of anticipation that I get when I send off some film. The feeling returns, redoubled, when the postie brings me some shiny new images. I experience a heady mixture of high anxiety and the overwhelming desire to rip open the packet to see whether I have any "bastards" or whether I've cocked them all up. The delay between making an image and seeing it, something that is inherent in using film, has once again brought a frisson of excitement and, I'll admit, a certain smugness that I don't feel the need for the instant gratification open to users of digital. Psychologists talk about the habit of delayed gratification – the ability to wait in order to obtain something that one wants – as a sign of sound mental health. I suppose most people would experience this as the habit of leaving their favourite portion of a meal until last; not eating the bacon or chips until you've stuffed down the healthy green bits that you don't really like. If delayed gratification is good then the reverse is surely a sign of dire problems. What a state all those fans of digital must be in! ;-)

Anyway, back to my point... When I opened the packet there were the usual mix of failures (3), adequates (10), successes (10) and very successful images (just 2). (Images in this latter category are sometimes also known as "bastards", though strictly speaking I feel that this classification can only be awarded by a committee of my peers and it is presumptuous of me to classify my own images in this way!) But, what makes these latter two images so special to me?

There are numerous reasons why an image might resonate strongly with the photographer that made it, and most of these might also be shared by an audience. But some belong uniquely to the individual photographer; the image may resonate simply because it reminds them of the time and place when they made the image or because it reminds them of particular difficulties encountered during its making or because they feel it to be a great artistic or technical success. As a practicing photographer these reasons all come quickly to mind but another one is, I think, a little less obvious: it may resonate because it surprises them. The two images from Iceland that I classed as "very successful" also fall into the category of images that surprise me.

I've been struggling to think why this is. It's not simply that they came out better than I expected (that would only make them at the high end of the "success" category) and it's not simply that the image looks different from the reality; that happens to an extent every time anyone makes a photograph. Looking at them I was taken to places that were somehow different from the physical locations. Even though I had been there, the place in the image was somehow somewhere else, somehow different and/or more than what I had expected. Obviously the image was transcribed by light and hence is bound to the point of its creation but I almost got the feeling, "Where was I when this was made?" I don't think that this dislocation is just due to the transformation of perspective or colour. As I wrote above, these are the commonplace transformations present in every photograph that I make and I'm used to them. I suspect that the answer to "Where was I?" is "there!" but that the most important part of the creative decisions in these cases were made by my subconscious. So, although I performed all the physical tasks necessary to make the image, my conscious mind didn't register the significance of why I was striving for the composition or even fully realise how the final image would look.

Looking back at the few older images that I still like the one thing they seem to have in common is that they all surprised me when I first saw the film and that they still surprise me. I think that this quality of surprise might also be a more universal indicator of a successful image as the "surprising" images of mine have generally been the ones that have received the greatest acclaim. A conversation I had with Eddie Ephraums, during work on my last book, seems to support this theory. He was describing the work of another photographer and said that although the images amazed him they didn't surprise him and consequently he felt that there was a limit on his appreciation of the work.

I suppose that the quality of surprise might merely be another way of talking about the quality of mystery that I discuss in Landscape Beyond. But I also wonder if it might relate to something that Ben Maddow wrote in Weston, His Life;

But photographs become something more when they are a record of the interaction of photographer and subject. It is arguable that all great photographs... have this quality – that what we see, what we respond to, is the dialogue between subject and artist, unspoken, unspeakable.

On a superficial level what we're attracted to in a photograph is the subject, and in many images this is all there is to connect to. We might like or dislike an image because of something trivial, like the dominant colour, but when we really love (or hate) an image it is the photographer's vision of the subject that we are responding to. Surely the vision of a(nother) photographer can only really grip us when it surprises us; when it makes us see something as if for the first time, when it makes us see in a new or different way. The image can amaze us with its technical quality, masterful use of composition or the way in which the photographer has captured a moment of beautiful light but these factors will eventually pall. Perhaps only surprise, in some senses the most evanescent of emotions, will endow an image with lasting appeal.

I'm just back from my fifth visit to Iceland, a country that has really got under my skin. Of course I took my trusty Linhof TK45 with me and made a smattering of large format images. But this year I also took my new phone, a Sony Ericsson C902. I've been using a phone camera to make photographic sketches for a couple of years now but the Sony was a bit of a revelation. It allowed me much more control than my previous phone; giving me the option to control exposure, colour balance and choose monochrome. I really enjoyed playing with compositions in a much freer way than I could with the TK and particularly enjoyed making monochrome images after a gap of almost 20 years. I'm never going to give up LF but it was great fun to make images without some of its constraints. Please click here or on the image on the right to see a gallery of some of the phone pics I made.